I slept like a 49-year old and woke up feeling a bit smug that I had moved into a new phase in my life.

When I danced around the kitchen singing happy birthday to myself, Murphy the wonder-pup danced around my feet as though he were celebrating with me. Either that or he was doggy-praying that I would calm down and act my age.

I felt a sense of empowerment as I drove to work knowing that, on this day, I was half a century old.

I nearly depressed myself with the empowering thoughts because 50 sounds so much better than half a century. Ugly crying wasn’t an option so half a century turned into two fourths of one.

50 was starting to sound exciting,

Half a century sounded like it belonged in the back basement corner of a now-defunct museum.

During my drive to work, my mind, as it usually does, began to wander. I started down the broken road of things I would change, but decided unless it was my bed linens or the time on my watch, it wasn’t worth wasting my thoughts on.

I doubt there is a person on earth who wouldn’t change things if they could, but since the time machine hasn’t yet been perfected, it would be a mute point.

Mute.

So I sang happy birthday to myself again as I drove along and gave thanks to God that He let me have another trip around the sun.

I’m 50 and proud of it.

I can’t say I’m all that thrilled about the AARP mail, but I did like the look of that free backpack.

not for celebrations and parties. Not for get-togethers with good friends and people you may know. Not shopping for bargains and gifts, not meeting up to have a good time and not for having a nice glass of wine with like-minded folks.

Well, actually, it is that time of year, but not for everyone.

For some, this time of year means eating a cold can of beans alone in an empty room without power because the electric bill wasn’t paid. It wasn’t paid because the baby needed medication and there wasn’t enough money for medication and electricity.

For some, this time of year means standing on the street, in the cold, wearing street clothes and house slippers because there wasn’t enough money for rent and if there wasn’t enough money for rent, there certainly wasn’t enough money for a coat and shoes.

For some, this time of year brings memories that are bitter and hurtful; thoughts of years past that ran, one into the other, with no happiness or joy.

For some, this time of year means nothing. It is simply the passing of time while watching the world go by, just like the year before and the year before that.

For some, this time of year means family, food, friends and fellowship. It is these people who embrace the season and enjoy it as they always have, together with the people they love and are comfortable with.

But what about all the others?

Who, when they set down to their family table laden with food, surrounded by family, warm, cozy and perfect, think of those who have nothing, expect nothing and know nothing different from the emptiness they feel every year at this time?

I and many others call ourselves followers of Christ. We say with our voices how much we love and want to be like Jesus.

We sing praises, bless our food and continue on in the same traditions we have followed for years. We praise Jesus and say we want to be like Him but prove time and again that we recite words we believe but don’t, deep down, mean and we fail the very Jesus we say we want to be like.

He wants us to share what we have; not just home, warmth, family, friends and food, but the very word that would bring others to love and honor Him.

Invite a stranger to Thanksgiving dinner. Invite several strangers.

Let’s bring someone homeless to our home and make them, for one day, family.

Let’s show them that Jesus is real and that they are loved.

This time of year is our time, the Jesus follower’s time. Our time to put our money where our mouth is. To be hospitable, to offer shelter and food for those who are hungry and the ones the world calls outcasts.

It is our time to take in everyone, despite everything, and to show them Jesus.

If we, who claim to be the hands and feet of Jesus don’t show love to the oppressed, be certain that the evil one will.

He will entice and enchant them, then make them slaves to his depravity and hatred of all things good.

Don’t give the devil the satisfaction of beating us to the punch. Let us be the Jesus we claim to want to follow and lead someone to Christ by being the hands and feet of the Savior.

Make no mistake – Satan is working hard to win the souls of the lost and if we don’t work harder, he will win because he doesn’t give up if he doesn’t get a response on the first pass.

Be Jesus to the world and don’t give up just because you can find an excuse. Having an excuse doesn’t excuse us, but overcoming excuses and finding a way to be Jesus to the world shows our true alliance. We are with Jesus or not with Jesus. It is as simple as that.

Everyone reading this post is welcome to Thanksgiving Dinner at my mom’s house. You, for one day, will be our family, you will be warm and your bellies will be full. Must love, or at least tolerate dogs, though, because our place is lousy with them! 🙂

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It isn’t an easy question to answer for most people, but for me, it is simple … I want socks, soap and candles.

That has been my go-to answer for years because I don’t really need anything specific and although I don’t want to sound rude, I don’t entrust my camera and electronic equipment into the hands of my family and friends.

This year’s answers were pretty much the same as all the others until a unexpected event occurred.

I didn’t expect, when I was making my Christmas wish, that Gatlinburg, TN would be so torn by wildfires that threatened to destroy them.

It changed my Christmas list. I no longer wanted soap, socks and candles for myself, but wanted them for those who had suffered from the fires that raged through the Smoky Mountains for days.

I now ask for Christmas that anything my family and friends were preparing to give to me, they divert and send their gifts to those in need in the Gatlinburg community.

They have need of everything I’ve asked for and I would love for anything that was meant for me to go to them.

I bought way more than my nieces need or want, and know that with their their network, they will get more than they know what to do with, so, excepting for a few gifts, I’ve decided to divert my haul to Gatlinburg so that those who have lost everything will have something.

I don’t have bundles of money to give, but I can give what I have and I can give my time. I’m not particularly great at anything, but I’m adequate in many things.

It is my hope that I can help those trying to rebuild in my own inadequate way.

Send my socks, my soap, my candles and any other thing my family or friends may have bought me for Christmas to people who can use it more than I can.

I’m going to go to the Gatlinburg area the first chance I get to help in any way I can. I don’t always swing a hammer straight, but I can swing one.

I could photograph the damage and catastrophe, but that’s been done. I have other talents and am willing to break my back to help my neighbors.

I have need of nothing, can not think of anything I can’t live without, but those who lost everything, and the Smoky Mountains that I love so dearly, and cry so hard for, have lost everything.

It isn’t just the people who lost something, the mountains lost something, too. They lost so much, but there is nothing that I can do to replace the loss of wilderness and wildlife.

My heart breaks thinking about it and I’ve cried myself dry over the loss of the mountains.

I want to give back, not to be noticed by anyone, but to know that I was there when these people needed me.

Give my gifts to the shelters who are accepting them and know that there could be no greater Christmas for me than to know that my family and friends cared as deeply about the people in need as myself.

I am eight months old and am pretty big for my age. I came to live with these great people on this big farm with lots of space to run, other dogs to play with, or sometimes run from, depending on their mood, and a bunch of other people coming in and out at all hours.

Oh, and goats.

And a pond.

It’s a really great place to live and I’m learning things like how to sit when I’m told and to stay when I’m told. I bark at leaves and wind and really get excited when that big brown truck full of boxes comes around.

I really like it here.

Apparently this time of year is special because lots of people have come by with very loud sticks that they take into the woods and them come back out, sometimes with only the loud stick, but sometimes with a thing I’ve heard them call a “deer” or a “buck”. They talk about “bagging one” but so far, I haven’t seen any bags, although I don’t know what a bag is or what it looks like.

The things that came out of whatever they bagged are what got me in trouble, but I reiterate that it wasn’t entirely my fault.

I distinctly heard one of my favorites of my new people tell the ones who appear to be the Alphas of the place that I was a thinker and problem solver. I don’t think they believed her.

As it happens, I am both of those things and because of it, I found myself in a unique situation.

There is a lot of work that goes into doing whatever they do to the things that are bagged without bags and it seems that some parts are more important than others.

I, along with my new dog pals Moe, Molly and Blue (he’s the one that scares me a bit, but he doesn’t know how big I’ll grow, hehehe), sometimes get to take part in the ritual that follows the bagging by being thrown pieces of what they take out of it.

It’s pretty good stuff, I’ll have to say. I have not been disappointed, though I did get some red stuff on me and my favorite person fussed over me like I was hurt or something. I don’t know what all that was about, but I loved the attention and the delicious cookies she gave me after.

I’ve gotten a little off point of talking about my trouble, but here is the thing … those reddish looking pieces of something were just hanging there in what the baggers with the loud sticks called the shed and they smelled really good.

I have a keen nose and was, naturally, quite interested.

They were pretty high up, too high for me to reach even standing on my hind legs and stretching; and I can stretch a long way. I noticed a contraption of some kind under them and as I looked at it and looked at the hanging things, I began to formulate a plan.

Since some stuff the humans took in the house and other stuff they threw to me and my pals, I figured that whatever was hanging out of our reach must be pretty darn good.

I paced a bit, back and forth around the shed and kept coming back to the contraption that I’d seen them ride in.

After a bit of consideration, I realized that I was big enough and strong enough to climb into the back of that contraption which would make me much taller than my already fairly tall self.

So I went for it. After getting in the back of the contraption, I was able to rare up and get my powerful jaws around one of those things hanging in the shed.

It was like nothing I’d ever tasted. I was so excited that I went back and ate them all.

As it turned out, I learned a bit later, they were “deer hams” and something the humans prize very highly when they bag one of those critters with their noisy sticks.

They were pretty angry. I learned that word that day. I also learned “unhappy”, “bad dog”, “for the love of God”, and some others I can’t pronounce and judging from the faces that the words came from, I probably shouldn’t repeat them anyway.

I can’t promise that I won’t do it again because they were

SO.

VERY.

GOOD.

I’m hoping they will hang more of them, but my fear is that they have learned a valuable lesson about my prowess, intelligence and problem solving super powers.

See, as it turns out, it wasn’t even remotely my fault because number one, I can’t drive and didn’t park that contraption under the prized parts and number two, at the time I didn’t know any better.

I know better now, but boy howdy, those things were delicious and hope springs eternal.